The present invention relates to a recording/reproducing apparatus and a method for controlling the apparatus, and is suitable for use, for instance, in a camera-incorporated IC (Integrated Circuit) recorder.
An IC recorder has been used as a portable audio recording/reproducing apparatus. This IC recorder uses its built-in microphone to collect an external sound, compresses/encodes the obtained audio data, and records the resulting audio data into a built-in semiconductor memory or a flash memory or other external memory such as “MEMORY STICK (Registered trademark of Sony Corporation)”.
This IC recorder is small-sized, lightweight, and highly portable. In recent years, therefore, it is not only used in conferences, discussions, and other business scenes, but also widely used as a personal audio memo recorder.
In recent years, a CCD (Charge Coupled Device) camera is incorporated in the IC recorder. A still picture camera proposed, for instance, by Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2001-69453 associates image data based on a still picture, which is picked up by a CCD camera, with audio data based on a collected sound, and reproduces (displays) a still picture with timing with which the image data is associated while reproducing the audio data.